After Liberal Peace? From Failed State-Building to an Emancipatory Peace in Kosovo

Attempts to build a liberal peace and a concurrent neoliberal state in
Kosovo have not managed to produce a sustainable and emancipatory
peace. Instead, they have produced a local and negative hybrid peace
that has been co-opted by the dynamics of local state formation and state
contestation. These dynamics have overshadowed a meaningful transition
from ethnic hostility to sustainable peace that should encompass
pluralism, security, law, rights, and liberal institutions. This article
examines this emergence of a negative hybrid peace and explores the
prospects for a more emancipatory peace based on a local pro-peace infrastructure
that avoids the pitfalls of liberal peace in practice.